Portable devices for keeping score or progress of sporting events are quite old in the art. A typical example is a device used by baseball umpires to record balls and strikes, as well as outs, as they are called and totalizing them for the final ruling.
The games of tennis, racket ball, ping pong, etc., present special problems especially in that the players themselves want to keep the score and know at any instant how they stand. Tennis and racket ball are particularly fast moving games and it is easy to forget the score at a given instant. The great increase in popularity of these games in recent years has increased the importance of this problem.
Any device to be effective for this purpose must be attached in some way to the person of the player. The scores must be recorded accurately and rapidly without delaying the game. The scores must be visible to the players. After recording a score or point it should not be altered or destroyed unintentionally during the strenuous movement of the players between scores.
The prior patent art in this field which is known to me at this time is set forth below.
Sepe, U.S. Pat. No. 3,122,851 employs a number of star-shaped wheels having numbers indicating scores in games or points in a given set on the projecting ends of the star-shaped wheel in each case.
Pfleger, U.S. Pat. No. 3,777,699 is a rather sophisticated device which employs a counter mechanism to totalize the scores after they are fed into the device.
Izzo, U.S. Pat. No. 3,730,131 uses a plurality of wheels having the points and sets inscribed upon their surfaces and being visible through appropriate windows through which a given point or set may be seen after it has been turned to the corresponding position. Flexible spring locking arms of star-shaped configuration are used to hold the score indicating wheels in any given set position. This probably comes closest to my invention but does not disclose or claim the novel features which I have invented as set forth below.
All of the prior art uses detents to prevent unwanted and undesirable movement of the indicating discs, dials or wheels which show the score at any one time. None of these are sufficiently positive to prevent accidental motion or to assure the player that he has advanced to the next number without a double check and chance of error.